If there’s one thing that’s always a recurring trending topic, it’s speculation about the nature of Jada Pinkett Smith’s and Tupac’s close relationship.
Napoleon, one of the original members of Tupac’s rap group Outlawz Immortalz recently appeared on The Art of the Dialogue, where he spilled some tea about the time the late rapper met Jada’s now husband in person.
“The second time I probably heard him talk about her was when he went to LA and he was very upset. ‘Pac came in the room, he was like, ‘Jada gonna contact me like and tell me: DON’T DO NOTHING to Will Smith!’” Napoleon recalled.
Welp! Apparently, this assumptive pleading offended ‘Pac because of his deep respect for Jada.
“He was offended when she asked him not to do anything to Will Smith from a standpoint not to be violent towards him,” Napoleon continued. “I think that just hurt him more than anything. Because he was like, ‘What do you think this is? I’m not walking around being this impulsive, violent individual. So I think that probably hurt his feelings at the particular time.”
Jada and Tupac’s relationship also trended on June 16—which would’ve been the rapper’s 50th birthday—after she took to Instagram to honor him by sharing an unreleased poem he wrote.
If you recall correctly, Will has also spoken about being in the same room with Tupac, admitting that he didn’t handle it well because he was “deeply insecure” at the time.
“We were in the room together a couple of times and I couldn’t speak to him. And he wasn’t gonna speak to me if I wasn’t gonna speak to him,” Will said in an interview with The Breakfast Club at the top of 2020, while promoting Bad Boys For Life. “Jada would say all the time, ‘I’m telling you. Y’all are so similar. You’ll love him.’ And I just never…That was a huge regret of mine. That I couldn’t handle it. I was the soft rapper from Philly and he was Pac. [...] I was deeply, deeply insecure and I wasn’t man enough to handle that relationship.”
Of course, Black Twitter jumped right on it with the commentary and memes—most obviously the Will Smith cry-face from his hugely popular appearance on Red Table Talk regarding Jada’s “entanglement.”
Some even speculated on who would win in this hypothetical fight.
Here’s a clip from the aforementioned interview: